Everything I was meant to be
by Vain x Life Poetess
Summary: How does it feel when you've done everything that you're meant to do and you still feel alone? John Connor answers that with one simple answer.One shot.


**"Ever since I could remember**  
 **everything inside of me just wanted to fit in**  
 **I was never one for pretenders**  
 **everything that I tried to be wouldn't settle in**  
 **if I told you what I was**  
 **would you turn your back on me?**  
 **If I seemed dangerous would you be scared?**  
 **I get the feeling just because**  
 **everything I touch isn't dark enough**  
 **that this problem lies in me**

 **I'm more than a man with darkness inside him**  
 **I am taking a stand to escape what's inside me**  
 **A monster, a monster!**  
 **I've turned into a monster**  
 **A monster, a monster**  
 **and it keeps getting stronger**

 **Can I clear my conscience if I'm different from the rest?**  
 **Do I have to run and hide?**  
 **I never said that I wanted this**  
 **This burden came to me**  
 **And it's made his home inside**

 **If I told you what I was would you turn you back on me?**  
 **And if I seemed dangerous would you be scared?**

 **I get the feeling just because**  
 **everything I touch isn't dark enough**  
 **that this problem lies in me**

 **I'm more than a man with darkness inside him**  
 **I am taking a stand to escape what's inside me**  
 **A monster, a monster!**  
 **I've turned into a monster**  
 **A monster, a monster**  
 **and it keeps getting stronger (x2)**  
 **~Monster by Imagine Dragons**

 _"Maybe I am a monster … I don't think I would know if I were one. I'm not what you are, and not what you intended. So there may be no way to make you trust me."  
~Vision, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)_

John hated being called a monster. Looking back at his life, he guessed he always had it coming. But did everyone he loved had to betray him? No, he thought. But this is how it felt to be John Connor. Alone, powerless, part of the nothing.

Kate turned her face away from him. His laughter sent chills down her spine and he liked it. Last time she tried to escape, and threatened to kill herself if he didn't let her go back but he responded by telling her the simple truth: "You are never safe unless you are with me. You belong with me Kate. Accept it or die with the rest."

Today was no different. She said "I hate you as she focused her gaze at the person being tortured in front of her eyes. He chuckled and told Alex aka Sky Net to hold the prisoner down then told Kate to fill the bottle with water. She shook her head.

"Kate."

"No. I am not going to help you torture this poor man."

"This poor man nearly killed you!"

"Because I asked him to!" He stopped what he was doing and turned dangerously towards her. "I'd rather be dead then be like you, like this. Look at us. We deserve to die John. We are nothing but things … Is this what you want? Is this what I want? I just want to be free."

"You are free Kate. You can do whatever you want, nobody is telling you to stay." She was about to leave when he said "But if you leave, what kind of life will you have? People will look at you and think you are nothing but a stranger. Your father can't look at you without seeing the monster."

"I don't believe you. I am not you. I will make it."

"Come on Kate, deep down you know you'll fail, just like you always do." And with that, she chose to stay.

John always knew how to bend people to his will. He made Kate stay there through the whole ordeal until he broke the man and he revealed where his parents and their new family were hiding.

Taking care of the guardian wasn't easy, but he managed. His parents on the other hand were another story. He didn't want to kill them, he wanted to make them suffer. To see what he saw, to feel what he felt when they abandoned him and opted for that soulless machine over him, their own son.

Sarah he could understand to an extent. She wasn't his Sarah, but Kyle? He was his best friend and father. He was supposed to be by his side. Things were supposed to go his way.

"Things that want to happen Kyle" He told his father the day after they sent him to the mental hospital. His mother was sent to a maximum security facility, far from Kyle. He thought it was adequate. The woman had lived a Trojan existence her whole life, she could stand another twenty or more so years. His father though, hated closed spaces. They reminded him of the years he spent as a prisoner in that camp and he was especially afraid of needles. It was almost funny. In the past (their past) machines had experimented on him, now it was humans.

Subtle. Through this, he taught his dad that humans were just as capable of cruelty as machines. If not more. A machine did not feel joy or pain, unless it went rogue like some did. They worked for the common good of their overlord. A human on the other hand, rejoices in seeing others suffer.

And John had to admit he was glad that the human part of him hadn't been extinguished when Alex turned him because it was a deep joy that he felt when he visited his father with his three siblings and he nearly went mad and they had to restrain him and take him back to his room where they sedated him.

"Don't worry Kyle, your son and daughters will be well taken care of." He promised the day after when he brought Kate with him. He left soon after, leaving Kate there with the kids.

* * *

Kyle stared at Kate straight in the eyes. "You're like him." He said.

"How do you know?" She asked, her voice sad and her eyes filled with deep regret as she looked away.

"Because of your eyes. There is nothing there but the same pain I saw in John when he confronted us at the hospital."

"Oh."

"Why are you still with him? You are a T 3000. You can end this and him, and free us all. What stops you?" Though he already knew the answer. But he had to ask. Was it fate that he and Sarah always found each other? That Kate and John always fell in love?

"I can't … I can't answer that. Just do as he says, it will be easier for you and Sarah, believe me." She said and left the scene before tears could escape from her eyes.

The children said nothing, knowing better than to open their mouths when she was upset. Kyle sighed and went back to his room and sat on his mattress. John, the great John Connor, had turned the tables on everyone, including Sky Net, and he was ruining the lives of the people he loved the most, including him. What hurt the most though, was that history was going to repeat itself with his siblings, Kyle's son and daughters who'd be raised by strangers instead of their parents

 _Even if that stranger is their brother._ His brain said. "I can't do this. I can't." _You must_. "I can't."

He tried to do his best, play by the rules, and follow all the laws of destiny, and live his own life with Sarah and Pops but fate still screwed him over.

 _It's not fair. It's not._

* * *

Kate brushed her sister-in-law's dark brown hair. It was the same color as Kyle's but with those red streaks that she had obviously inherited from Sarah and that John had as well. Her eyes were also her mother's. As she did, her hand went to her abdomen. She couldn't leave now.

She sunk to her knees after she put the children to sleep and then curled in a ball. John did not try to talk to her. It was no use, they were going to have the same argument.

He just lay beside her in bed and pretended to be asleep as she pretended to be asleep as well, a failed attempt of the normalcy they once had when they were human.

* * *

This is what it felt to be John Connor. Alone even when you were surrounded by millions of followers. Feared even when you had your loved ones by your side. Hated even when you tried to save your parents from their humanity and they still turned against you and stabbed you in the back. Respected even when you had all of the above. But most important of all sinking to the bottom of every bottom when you sat in your chair and you look back at everything that led to this moment, at your wife and daughter, at your siblings, and the perfect society you created and come to accept this was your destiny all along.


End file.
